We live in a democracy. Majority rules, right? Not always. Not at the Oscars, anyway (necessarily). You’d think that the process of deciding the year’s Best Picture would be as clear-cut as to award the movie with the most votes. But it’s not, and hasn’t been since 2008. (It doesn’t necessarily work that way to determine the US President, so why should determining the year’s top movie be any different?)
In 2009, when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) expanded its Best Picture nominations from five to 10 (now the number of nominees can be anywhere between 5 and 10), it reintroduced its preferential voting system, one that was last used from 1934 – 1945. The system is pretty complex, and with over 7,000 ballots to sort, it takes about a week for those famed accountants at PricewaterhouseCoopers to determine the winners.
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